Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper Album Review
Experimental indie rocker and Animal Collective member drops new album
As the singer and drummer of Animal Collective and the artist behind acclaimed solo albums like Person Pitch and Tomboy, Noah Lennox has consistently positioned himself at the forefront of indie rock’s cutting edge over the past 10 years. With his latest release, Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, out on Domino Records Jan. 13, the experimental musician once again serves up an array of sounds both otherworldly and beautiful.
The 13 tracks collected on PBMTGR are linked by overarching themes of personal change and flux. On album standout “Boys Latin.” Lennox sings “Dark cloud / descended again” in his choirboy tenor – channeling the spirit of trying times over a weirdly distorted synthesizer riff. Elsewhere, on single “Mr. Noah,” Lennox’s angelic vocals seem to be wading through the swampy sounds created by his electronics. The kaleidoscopic journey the album takes us on mirrors life in all its highs and lows, and the lyrics that can be discerned from Noah’s heavenly vocals along the way read like mantras on themes of death, adaptation, and self-growth.
When Animal Collective (and by extension Panda Bear) were at their peak in the mid-to-late noughties, there was an energy and dynamism behind their experimental-ism that made their music fresh and exciting. Though latter day entries in the AC catalog have been somewhat hit-or-miss, Panda Bear does the group’s legacy proud with another solidly constructed LP.
